Authors: Louise Voss
‘I need to show you.’
Junko opened the thick steel security door and they stepped inside, finding their biosafety suits and stripping off, Kate wondering why she had bothered to get dressed in the first place.
Before they put on their helmets, Junko said, ‘It was all thanks to you, Kate.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘Your research paper. You left your laptop on the table earlier and, I’m sorry, but I couldn’t help but read it. I’ve read it before, of course, but not recently. I don’t understand why Kolosine didn’t circulate copies for all of us to read as soon as we got here.’
‘Of course I don’t mind – it’s public property. As for Kolosine, I don’t think he knows what he’s doing, Junko. His ego is so big it blots out every idea but his own.’
Kate had seen their head scientist only once since the failure to reveal the antibodies in her blood. He had called a team meeting in which he expressed his frustration in four-letter words, yelled at full volume, as he told them how useless and worthless they were. Kate and Junko had developed quite an extensive private language of facial gestures to indicate to each other exactly what they thought of him, as he ranted and swore and slammed his hand on the table. The rest of the team just put their heads down and stared at the floor, and William the epidemiologist looked as though he wanted to punch someone.
They donned their helmets and pushed through into the lab. Kate followed Junko across to the electron microscope that was kept in a darkened corner. Junko had already processed the samples of Watoto-X2 and prepared them for viewing.
‘Take a look,’ Junko said, ‘and I’ll explain.’
Angelica stopped and caught her breath, checking her watch – 00:15 – as she clung to the blue oak she was scaling. She had a slim but powerful Maglite attached to her belt, which illuminated the thick canopy of branches around her, the ground far below shrouded in darkness. Just below her,
she could see Cindy’s head; Simone was parallel with h
er in the next tree and Angelica could hear t
hem both panting with the exertion of climbing so high. They had been practising night-climbing for days now, back at the ranch. It was exhilarating, being so far from the man-made world. Up here, in the silence, the cool breeze caressing her skin, her heart thumping in her chest, she felt closer than ever to the Goddess.
She waited a moment for Cindy to catch her up, drawing level and perching on a thick branch beside her.
‘Are you OK, Sister?’ Angelica asked.
Cindy nodded, but Angelica could see a flash of fear on her face, which was shiny in the torchlight.
‘Don’t be afraid,’ Angelica coaxed. ‘Sekhmet is watching over us.’
‘I know, I … Jesus!’ The branch on which Cindy was resting shuddered violently and she grabbed at Angelica, her fingers skidding across the soft, black leather of her leader’s outfit. They were all wearing black leather from head to toe. Earlier, Cindy had giggled as she’d dusted her legs with talcum powder and pulled on the skin-tight trousers.
‘Do not say that,’ Angelica hissed.
‘I’m sorry, Dadi. I—’
‘What’s going on?’ asked Simone from her position a few feet away.
‘Quiet, you two.’ Angelica felt the anger bubble up from within. She shone her torch into Simone’s face, and the other woman coolly shaded her eyes with her free hand. With her smooth ebony skin, and black outfit, she was almost invisible. Simone the Warrior. Simone had been living with a drug dealer in LA, a man who beat her daily and pimped her out to his clients, until one day Simone snapped and fixed him up with a lethal dose of heroin. Angelica had found her wandering the projects, penniless, shivering with fear and hunger. She had bought her a hot meal and as she ate Simone told her about her upbringing, about the men her mother brought home and what they did to her. Angelica hugged her and promised her a new, better life, and a way of getting back at those men and the world they had created.
Behind her, Cindy sat on a branch, her fear forgotten, seemingly as at home as a squirrel in the treetops. Not for the first time, Angelica was struck by how beautiful Cindy was. But now was not the time to be thinking of such things.
Angelica shone her torch in the direction of the fence. ‘Follow me. We’re losing precious minutes here. Go swiftly. And be careful.’
The fence was a distance of three trees, and Angelica moved across the branches, knowing that one false move would send her hurtling down into the darkness. They were already fifty feet up, level with the top of the fence, and the fall would mean death or paralysis. The others stuck close behind her.
Minutes later, Angelica reached the fence. Now was the moment of truth. If their helper on the inside had done their job properly, the electrified fence would be disabled, along with the CCTV. She checked her watch. The insider had been instructed to switch everything off at 00:20 and turn it back on ten minutes later. It was now 00.21.
Cindy touched her on the shoulder and whispered in her ear, ‘Let me test it. If the power is still on, it’s better that I die than you.’
She reached out and stroked Cindy’s hair. ‘No. It is my destiny,’ she told her.
Straddling a thick branch that almost reached the fence, Angelica shuffled along as gracefully as she could, then, trying not to let the others see that her hand was trembling, stretched out her hand to touch the metal, aware that if the power was still on, the shock would char her flesh, send
thousands of volts through her body and blow her out of
the tree – she would be dead before she hit the ground. Intoning a silent prayer, she touched the metal.
Nothing. Just cool metal. The power was off.
She closed her eyes and exhaled, then snapped back into action. Gripping the top of the mesh fence, she launched herself off the branch and flung her body against the fifty-foot-high fence. It swayed for a moment, but she held tight and waited. Years before, she had helped break a political prisoner out of jail. That had been much harder, having to time her and the prisoner’s ascent to avoid sweeping searchlights. This was easier. She pulled herself to the top, swung herself over so she was on the other side, then stopped, removing the Maglite from her belt and pointing it at Simone, who was next in line. Cindy brought up the rear.
Angelica descended the fence as swiftly and easily as a spider traversing a web. When she was ten feet from the ground she paused and listened, to make sure there were no guards waiting at the bottom. She heard no signs of life. The insider had, again, done a good job. An hour before, Angelica’s new would-be disciple had gone out to chat with the guards, offered them a drink of coffee which they’d gladly accepted, not knowing it contained a strong dose of rohypnol along with the sugar and cream.
She dropped the last few feet and reached the ground, landing like a cat and crouching in the darkness, waiting for the other two. They jogged as a group towards the building. It was so easy. A fire escape led up to the roof and they ascended it slowly, careful not to make any noise. They passed a lit window and Angelica peeped inside to ensure no one was looking out before they crept on by.
Now, on the rooftop, she would see if their helper on the inside had done everything she asked. She crossed the roof to a fire door and tested it.
It opened. Moments later, the three of them were inside. It was 00.39.
Angelica stopped and pulled off her miniature backpack. She produced a small roll of paper and smoothed it flat against the wall, shining her torch on it. It showed a floorplan of the building. The other women gathered around as she pointed out where each of them was to go, giving them a final reminder of what they had rehearsed at the ranch.
Finally, she pulled her gun from the holster on her outer thigh. It was a Sig Sauer P220, her favourite pistol, the first one she had ever been trained to use. A suppressor had already been screwed in place. Cindy carried the same gun, but Simone preferred a Glock 17.
Angelica spread out her arms and the Sisters drew close, putting their arms round each other’s shoulders and touching foreheads. She kissed their cheeks, lingering for a moment longer on Cindy’s soft face.
Then, without a word, they scattered, each with their own target; their personal mission in which they could not fail.
Kate peered into the microscope, staring for what felt like the millionth time at the Watoto virus. This new strain was so similar to the old that its morphology – its shape and size – was as familiar to her as the smell of Jack’s skin. Watoto was shaped almost like a seahorse, setting it apart from its haemorrhagic cousins – the worm-like shape of Ebola, and the cigarette-like form of Marburg.
‘What am I looking for?’ she asked Junko.
‘Something you have seen many times, I think,’ the Japanese woman replied. ‘But it was a mystery to you. Or a ghost. You mentioned it in your paper.’
‘The ghost?’
‘Yes. Remember, in your paper, you said that sometimes when studying the virus you thought you could see a trace of something that didn’t belong, like a ghost flickering in and out of sight. You thought perhaps it was a contamination.’
Kate stared back into the microscope: the virus was so tiny that a million of them could fit on the head of a pin. But it taunted her. Had done for years. She hardly dared to feel excited or optimistic. Could Junko have really found the key to beating this killer?
‘Go on,’ she said.
‘I—’ She stopped. ‘What was that?’
They both stared towards the door.
‘I don’t know,’ said Kate. ‘But it sounded like a gunshot.’
Angelica turned the door handle and slipped silently into the room. The virologist called Chip lay in the bed, his mouth open. He was snoring. Angelica looked at the picture of the rather ugly woman on the bedside cabinet, wiry hair and a weak chin. She was probably relieved to be enjoying some peaceful nights.
She held the barrel of her gun an inch from Chip’s forehead and fired, the suppressor rendering the shot silent as his brains and fragments of skull splattered the headboard. Chip was one of the lucky ones. Didn’t most people want to die peacefully in their sleep?
Simone entered William’s room. Dadi Angelica had explained at some length what this guy did – he was an epidemiologist, whatever the hell that was – but Simone hadn’t really been listening.
All she knew and cared about was that it was her mission to end him.
He was curled up in a foetal position, his face scrunched up with anxiety. Bad dream.
She folded a stick of chewing gum into her mouth. She felt like an angel of mercy, come to rid him of his nightmares.
She tapped him on the forehead with the tip of her gun, just hard enough to wake him, to bring him out of his bad dream. The moment he opened his eyes, she shot him in the face.
Kolosine was awake in his room. He had been in the lab until late, working in solitude in his own workspace in the corner, slamming freezer doors, rattling tubes and cursing loudly, partly out of sheer frustration, but also because he didn’t want anyone near him. He lay on his bed and chewed the inside of his cheek, tasting the coppery blood and trying to force his brain to work, to make connections, to do its goddamn job.
He had been so sure Maddox’s blood held the answer. So confident that, unknown to everyone else, it was his only shot. Once that had failed he’d felt like a rock singer who, when facing a difficult crowd, pulls out his greatest hit, his sure-fire crowd-pleaser … only for it to be greeted with silence.
Now what were they going to do? None of the other halfwits in this place had a snowball’s chance of finding a cure – not that loser Chip, not the Japanese chick, whose chance of success was nearly as small as her tits, and certainly not that waste-of-space Kate Maddox, who had been pursuing a cure for Watoto longer than the Redskins had been trying to win another Superbowl.
He pulled the quilt up over his head, wishing he’d brought Jenny with him. Her warm twenty-three-year-old body and mouth would have provided some comfort in these dark days. Suddenly, an image of his mom flashed into his head, washing away the naked postgrad. He hadn’t seen his mom since last Thanksgiving, when they’d quarrelled as usual about the grandchildren he had yet to produce.
Well, guess what, Mom? The way things are going, nobody is gonna have any freaking grandchildren to look forward to.
His eyes filled with sudden, unexpected tears. What the hell was wrong with him? He was debating whether to reach for his secret stash of whisky when he heard a click. It sounded like someone coming into his room.
He stuck his head above the quilt, realising as he did so that he was hoping to see Dr Maddox slipping into his room, maybe in a lab coat with nothing underneath, and she would let the lab coat slide off her shoulders before climbing on top of him.
But it was a different woman, dressed in black leather, gorgeous but terrifying. She was pointing a gun in his direction, hesitating just long enough for him to scream before she shot him in the head and his brain switched off for ever.
Agent McCarthy’s eyes snapped open. He had heard a scream. It sounded like it had come from a nearby room. The bedside clock told him it was 0.43.
As he flicked on the lamp and swung his legs out of bed, he caught a glimpse of himself in the mirror, undershirt and shorts straining to contain his bulk. Damn, he was out of shape. When all this was over, he was going on a diet.
His holster was hanging from the back of a chair. He grabbed his gun and stuck his head out of the door just in time to see a figure coming out of the room two doors down – Kolosine’s room. It was a woman with long black hair, clad head to toe in leather. She had her back to him, but he could see she was carrying a gun. Before she could turn, he ducked back into his room, suddenly aware of his heart pounding in his chest.
Grabbing the pillow from his bed, he pushed the door open swiftly with his foot and stuck the pillow out into the corridor, knowing that if the woman was there she would fire at the sudden movement. But no shot came.
He peered out. The hallway was empty.